COMM 408: Big Data Tools and Communication

Many people assume “big data” sets are neutral purveyors of truth, and students in humanities and social sciences communication fields increasingly use freely available tools to track website “hits” and to scrape “public” information from social media sites. Often, they use this data to create data visualizations. However, is this data really an accurate representation of the digital landscape, and what are the ethical implications of it? Students in this course learn to use some simple and freely available tools to collect and analyze “public” data alongside critical analytic frameworks to communicate about this data accurately and ethically. In the first half of the class, students compose two smaller papers about their analyses. In the second half of the class, students write a position paper about the limits of big data.